The Macabre and the Unusual

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Monster Mondays – Bonnacon

Bonnacon is really a creature where the less said about it the better. So I’ll just go straight to the source. Pliny the Elder, author of the worlds first Natural History Encyclopedia and one of ancient Greece’s most brilliant writers. His Natural History is over 160 volumes long and holds the closest thing we have to a complete record of Greek knowledge at that point. He must have thought no one would possibly read the whole thing when he slipped in this gem.

“Pliny- “There are reports of a wild animal in Paeonia called the bonnacon, which has the mane of a horse, but in all other respects resembles a bull; its horns are curved back in such a manner as to be of no use for fighting, and it is said that because of this it saves itself by running away, meanwhile emitting a trail of dung that sometimes covers a distance of as much as three furlongs (half a mile), contact with which scorches pursuers like a sort of fire.”

Yes, Bonnacon is Buffalo followed by half a mile of flaming dung. But words aren’t enough to convey it’s might. We need ridicules illuminated manuscripts of knights getting buffalo shit on them. Better bring a shield.